Aston Villa are up to fifth in the Championship table after this impressive win at Queens Park Rangers,

Albert Adomah scored the important goals, bagging a brace to put Villa on top after Jamie Mackie’s opener.

This is what we learned from the game at Loftus Road:

Just what the Dr ordered

Owner Tony Xia should visit more often if Villa are going to play like that every time he’s here!

The chairman flew over from China to watch the game as well as the next two home encounters against Sunderland and Ipswich.

You can bet he was pleased with the display - and he will have gathered that Villa are now genuine promotion contenders, rather than pretenders.

Villa played on the front-foot throughout and created chance after chance.

The 3,200 away fans sang throughout and were actually entertained, which is something they haven’t be able to enjoy many times on the road in recent years.

Xia addressed the team on Friday with a rousing speech and, taking nothing away from the motivational work Bruce and his coaches put in, it seemed to do the trick.

A telling stat

Incredibly, this was the first time Villa have come from behind to win a game on the road since August 2013.

The last time was at Arsenal on the opening day of the 2013/14 season - you remember the one? Christian Benteke scored twice and Antonio 'Tony Moon' Luna wrapped up a 3-1 victory after Olivier Giroud's early opener.

This was in a different part of London and was a different kind of challenge, but given that Villa were without skipper John Terry, it was still an impressive show of character.

Bruce wants his team to be made of much sterner stuff than the relegated rag-bag of a squad he inherited. They will need to be to sustain their challenge.

On the right road

There’s room for improvement still at Villa, even on the road, but what a difference a season makes.

Villa actually won here at Loftus Road last season when Jonathan Kodjia scored the winning goal - a rare occasion when they tasted victory on their travels.

But the star man was out injured this time so it was down to the others.